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Audacity of Truth
Is it just about over for Fred Thompson?
I know that it’s still early, and at this point anything can happen, but in spite of Fred’s slight bump in the polls in SC after the last debate, it’s still a two way race between McCain and Huck. Last night on BlogTalkRadio we were talking about the Thompson campaign, analyzing what went wrong and speculating as to whether or not things could turn around for the campaign.
I know a lot of conservatives were stoked when they first heard Fred Thompson was considering running for president. The top tier of Rudy, McCain, and Romney were (and are) found to be uninspiring, hard-to-support candidates – Rudy because of his liberal views on many issues, McCain because of the illegal immigration issue, McCain Feingold, and other issues, and Romney because he reminds people of a flashy used car salesman. After getting beaten in 2006, conservatives were looking for a guy they could really rally around, a guy who would pump them up and make them enthusiastic about the race and looked to Fred. When he announced his candidacy, there was a lot of excitement in the air. But over time, though, many of the Fred supporters I’ve talked to have grown frustrated with Fred because they feel/felt more enthusiasm about his candidacy than he appears to.
I think Fred’s first mistake was not jumping into the race in the middle of the summer. At that time, Fredmania was smokin’ hot in the conservative blogosphere, and conservative publications were buzzing about the possible implications of a Fred run, and how it would change the dynamics of the race. If he’d have jumped into it in the summer, he could have raised megabucks, IMO, because people really were excited about him. He could have capitalized on that and gone far with it. But by the time he got into the race, which was in early September, people had had time to examine his record and speculate about him a bit, and some of the enthusiasm started to fall off. And over the course of the next three months, Fred’s campaign took a serious nosedive. Some would say that that happened because the media doesn’t like Fred Thompson too much, or that maybe he has an incompetent campaign staff. But quite honestly, Fred’s campaign staff have worked harder on his campaign than he has. If people were to go by solely what his campaign staff had said and done for him, Fred would be polling in the top spot in every Republican poll out there.
And therein lies the crux of the problem with Fred’s campaign, and it’s one I saw from the start: Fred Thompson was a candidate who was drafted to run for pres. He didn’t just wake up one day and decide he wanted to be president. Some people might find that refreshing, that he didn’t start off with the ambition to be president and thus didn’t work for years to “prime” himself for a run, but in my personal opinion, I think that’s a negative, because when it comes to presidential elections, I don’t want someone who has to be drafted by supporters to join the race. I want someone who wants to be in and who doesn’t hesitate when the time comes to say “I’m ready, let’s do this.”
Beyond having to be drafted by supporters to throw his hat into the ring, he’s come across poorly in speeches and public appearances, and interviews on news programs. He just doesn’t appear to be as passionate and committed to winning as you’d expect a presidential candidate to be. Sometimes it’s like he’s phoning it in. I read about one speech he made a couple of months ago to a group of supporters where he had to ask them to applaud his speech. That’s bad. In media interviews, he comes across as hostile. And as much as I distrust the mediots, you can’t treat them as your enemy when you’re a candidate for public office.
This is disappointing on so many fronts, because conservatives were looking to Fred as sort of a ‘leader’ for the party, but he just hasn’t delivered. He’s got good ideas, but he doesn’t have the enthusiasm, and that’s a serious negative.
I know some people who have said “who cares about charm and charisma? Ideas are good enough for me.” As I said on the BTR show tonight, that’s idealistic but not realistic. When you’ve got the possiblity of having a charismatic figure like Obama as your opponent, you need to be able to excude at least a fourth of that charm in addition to your great ideas, if you want any chance to appeal to mainstream voters. Voters don’t just want someone with good ideas. They want someone they can like and relate to. Fred has never come across as that type of candidate to me.
He’s not going to win SC this weekend, and I predict that if he doesn’t drop out of the race before Florida (where he is polling very poorly), he will drop out shortly thereafter, and quickly announce his support for someone he became friends with when they were both in the Senate: John McCain.
That’s another thing I’m not sure many Fred supporters have looked deeply into, and that’s that the guy they like the least in the GOP race is the one who is probably liked the most by Fred. Fred backed John McCain for president in 2000 and was McCain’s national co-chair. He played a key role in getting McCain Fiengold passed, and his immigration record in the Senate is not unlike McCain’s. So when it comes to Senate records, Fred Thompson isn’t all that different from John McCain. He may be a little different now that he’s running for president, but it hasn’t always been that way.
I’m not saying all this to dis or throw cold water on the Thompson campaign. I like Fred Thompson, and he’s got a lot of good solid conservative ideas. But his candidacy is going nowhere fast and I don’t see that changing after this weekend.
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In related Campaign 2008 news, the latest Las Vegas Review-Journal polling for Nevada shows Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney with comfortable leads going into tomorrow’s caucuses.
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18 Responses to “Is it just about over for Fred Thompson?”
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How can any conservative vote for Romney?
He was listed as one of the top ten Republicans in Name Only by Human Events Magazine.
LINK
What will he be after the primary?
And would he be another George Bush if he gets elected?
Our hostess said:
The problem with the Thompson campaign is that he never really had one. He was late in deciding to run, and the people he finally hired to do his campaign work didn’t do the work. In Delaware, where it requires only 500 valid signatures to get on the primary ballot; the Thompson campaign managed barely more than half of that — because they expected Thompson supporters to just walk into the campaign office and sign them! In Iowa, the Thompson campaign was sending out e-mail notifications of Mr Thompson’s personal appearances so late that the people on the e-mail list could never hope to attend.
It’s as if Mr Thompson thought he could just declare his candidacy and every Republican would just flock to his banner, without him having to actually work for votes. It isn’t turning out that way.
Steve asked:
Well, here’s why I support Governor Romney!
He isn’t perfect — no candidate is — but this is a man who doesn’t just say what he’s going to do, but one who has actually done things.
I keep hoping beyond hope that people will see the candidates that they are voting for are just wrong on so many things. Thompson has the answers. I think that not having an incredibly large ego is a good thing to have in a president. If the primaries had not turned into this circus thing that we have now, Fred would be doing fine. I am frustrated.
Those who ‘aspire’ to be in government usually have the philosophy (maybe I’m generalizing) that I’m against – of the government doing for us.
Ala Edwards and Clinton. They have aspired for a long time to be pres. They see the government as the solution not the problem.
My two cents..
My apologies to both Dear Sis and to Dana, but I think you are both wrong. Thompson didn’t get in to late, everyone else got in to early. Don’t think that hasn’t hurt some of these guys?? 8 months ago Guiliani was the front runner, now he is hardly mentioned. Romney was a close 2nd and now he is running behind Huckabee, a 2nd teir candidate. Polls me little to nothing, I wish people would understand that. According to the Polls McCain was suppose to win MI, he didn’t. So they are about as useless as teets on a bull. Look at Hitlery, she was the annointed candidate, now she is running 2nd or 3rd behind the empty suit. Polls mean nothing.
Rush was just playing a sound bite from the head of the Southern Baptist Convention, and he said that people should throw their support behind Fred Thompson. David Limbaugh is supporting Fred. There is a huge ground swell of grass roots support for Fred, and I think he is going to do better than the polls will reflect, just like he did in Iowa. Look at the last debate, which he won. Look at his schedule right now, for a guy who is “uncommitted” he is working his tush off as we speak. I am believing that he will do better in SC than the polls will reflect.
Personally I am rather disheartened by this post, and it saddens me incredibly. – Lorica
I’ve yet to see a candidate I would vote for. I can’t throw my support behind any of these crooks, both Reublican or Democrat.
Yeah…I know…vote for the “lesser of two evils”. However when you do that you are still supporting evil, even if it is the lesser of the two. IMHO, that’s immoral.
I am to the point where I want integrity and honesty first above all other things. As long as you are sincere in wanting what’s best for the citizens of this nation I will support you. We can debate policy later.
But I see no one who wants that.
Well, there really was no other way to put what I wanted to say, and I felt it needed to be said. Of course, I’m late to really talking about it in depth, as others starting doing so weeks ago. I wanted to give the campaign a little more time before I weighed in with my assessment. I could be wrong, but it’s just a gut feeling I have.
We aren’t always going to agree at this blog, but I want everyone to know where I stand and what I think re: what’s being written about and discussed.
Your analysis about Fred is dead on. I got excited last summer and lost interest by the time he jumped in the race. He did nothing to win me over but I would not have been disappointed if he got the nomination.
I do disagree that Mitt reminds people of a slick used car salesman. Mitt looks and sounds like he was born to be President. He is the guy you would cast in a movie as the POTUS. Hopefully the Fred supporters will come over to Romney. We need a conservative candidate. I can’t see them going to Huckabee, McCain, or Giuliani.
I’m not ready to throw my oar and musket in the water just yet. I am also not going to say that Fred Thompson got in too late; the other two strong-conservative candidates that are/were in the race, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, were in at the same time as Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and the rest of the early-risers, and they failed miserably.
As for where I’d go if Thompson also craps out, I see the remainder of the front-runners as accelerating the slouch toward socialism begun in earnest by “compassionate ‘conservatism’”, but by varying degrees. Romney is the closest to Bush though closer to the Dems, with Giuliani, John McCain and Mike Huckabee (in that order) progressively closer to the Dems (indeed, in key areas, they are completely indistinguishable).
That’s funny…
Didn’t the Democrats say about the same thing about Bill “Slick Willie” Clinton?
I am sure Thompsons campaign made mistakes, getting in ‘late’ was not one of them. As it has been stated, he got in during the normal time, where all the other candidates got in early.
Also, I think the media has more to do with polls, and how candidates are perceived than anything else. Thompson gets very little press, even less than any of hte other GOP runners..
So where is most of the media attention? On the Democrats of course. Even when Hillary doesn’t win, she is the news main item.
Hell, even Chris Matthews is apologizing on the air to her.
I need to find a clip of “I’m soooory….sooo soooorry…”
As for Fred, I hate to admit it, but ST may be right in that gut feeling. I want Fred to be President, he is the best of the lot we have, he is the man with the right ideas….but his ideas do not trump what others feel is making them FEEL like he WANTS it.
Beginning to think these people are democrats, with wanting him to make them FEEL like he really, really wants it.
They want to have him energize them…well drink some coffee.
I want him to make me safer, do the right thing, deal with the mess in washington….but it seems that doens’t trump how people want him to make them FEEL.
Personally I thought we as concervatives were more about using our heads and common sense, which would make Fred IT…and not judging adn going on FEELINGS.
It really is unfortunate.
Because Hugh Hewitt will be on suicide watch if we don’t?
But seriously… support whoever you believe in. That said, the way Hewitt
at the altar of Mitt is so over the top it’s beyond parody.
Lorica, I’m not happy with it either, but facts are facts. If Fred can’t show something better than 10% in a primary soon – and I mean VERY soon – his time may have passed.
Look, I shared the interest in Fred and the excitement that was percolating through the blogosphere last summer. Like so many others, I was waiting for the announcement. Conservatives all over where ready to saddle up and ride to the sound of the guns, so to speak. So finally Fred goes on Leno and makes his announcement and then….
Nothing.
From everything I’ve been able to see, it’s been mismanaged from the start – that’s one aspect where I might differ from ST. I’ve read reports of things like not giving supporters more than a day’s notice of campaign events. A candidate with a laid-back style like Fred can’t afford those kind of problems.
The blog support is still alive and passionate, as witness the recent blogburst that netted some badly-needed financial support. Steveegg talked about it at some length on the bRight and Early broadcast just before the Iowa vote.
In short, Fred’s got the credentials and the ideas that so many of us can willingly get behind. Listen to him in the debates and read his position papers and most of us will be nodding in agreement. Fred appeals to the mind, in direct contrast to say, Empty Suit whose appeal is entirely based on personal magnetism and not one iota on ideas. But for much of today’s electorate, that’s not enough. You need to get more people than just us blog-dwelling political junkies to come out to vote for you.
I’ll be out here on Super Tuesday and voting for Fred in the NJ primary. But if his campaign can’t expand beyond what we’ve already seen – and do it soon – I think ST’s gut feeling is correct.
Rudy and Fred ticket? We shall see.
Thompson for Pres.
I’m hoping that by tomorrow evening, the answer to the question posed by ST here will be a resounding ‘NO’! Fred has had an incredible surge in the polls today in SC and as of this afternoon, was polling third with 17% and climbing. While I had complained about a perceived lack of ‘fire’ some time ago, he certainly fixed that to my satisfaction, and has made his presence and message loud and clear for all to see. Too late? Maybe. I can only hope not.
Fred in ‘08!
BTW FOLKS, Polling data reflects things late.
You see Fred did very well in the debate last week and it took a few days for the polling data coming in to start reflecting a bump. Then each day that passed the polling data showed a bigger and bigger increase.
This is not by accident. Pollers only ask a certain number of people per day and roll that data into their computers. For instance, a pollster may actually talk to about 20 people per day, depending on the number of questions they are set up to ask.
There is from what I can hear rhetorically a lot of excitement for Thompson in SC and Huckabee and McCain were/are on the way down. They are not who the people in America are excited about (in my humble opinion).
There isn’t a lot of excitement for ANYBODY in this race except Thompson that I see! Tell me WHO???
We’ll get this thing right and it’ll start with SC showing that tomorrow with a second place or first place finish for the most exciting guy in this race…
and that’s Fred Thompson!